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Journalism of Courage
Kolkata is a city of tangles. Tangled traffic,tangled wires,tangled explanations. On Tuesday,those tangles got in each others way,catastrophically. Stephen Court,a landmark on Park Street,went up in flames,orange tongues of fire billowing out of its three highest floors in a macabre manner reminiscent of the festive decorations traditionally hung from the top floors through Christmas and the New Year. Stephen Court abuts the crossroads dead centre of a street that is,in turn,the centre of Kolkata when it celebrates itself. On its ground floor are places Flurys,Peter Cat that shepherded generations through lifes mundane rituals. On higher floors,the citys genteel past and huckstering present mix: call centres and IT shops taking advantage of cheap sub-leases in the city centre,elderly tenants that have lived in one dim room for decades. All those layers were visible as tragedy unfolded on Tuesday afternoon. The young people in the casualwear-cum-uniform of the small city enterprise that stood on parapets,their eyes gauging the distance to the street,to the hands upraised trying to stop them from jumping,promising to cushion their fall. And the sixtyish Anglo-Indian lady in the pink dress,descending a ladder deliberately,and with dignity.
But the legal anomalies and lack of reform that allow them to work and live in old buildings in the centre of town are,unfortunately,also the root cause of the fire. One: Stephen Court,like its neighbours at that city intersection Karnani,Park,and Queens Mansions are heritage buildings,which cant be altered unless an impossible set of criteria are fulfilled. Unfortunately,the modernisation necessary to support more tenants and increased electrical equipment is also tampering. Two: archaic rent laws that favour tenants over landlords,which means they dont invest the amount they should,impacting safety. Three: the haphazard approach to utilities,which means that there isnt a corridor in those buildings that doesnt have its own tangle of electricity wires and cables.
